Tourism operators around B.C.’s Cariboo region spent some nervous days fielding calls from arriving guests and talking them out of cancelling reservations after the Aug. 4 tailings-dam breach at Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley mine near Williams Lake.

They appear to have succeeded, for the most part, after aerial images of the giant gash in Mount Polley’s tailings dam gushing a torrent of grey muck down Hazeltine Creek spread worldwide almost instantly, leaving an impression of widespread damage.

But resorts and tour companies are worried that initial impression will stay with would-be B.C. visitors, prompting them to avoid the region, and hurting tourism businesses.

“We had a group phone from (London’s) Heathrow Airport,” said Gary Zorn, who operates Ecotours B.C. with his wife Peggy. Their business is headquartered at Likely, near the Mount Polley mine.

The travellers saw news about the mine disaster on televisions at the airport.

Peggy took the call and assured them that while their lodge is 10 kilometres away from the mine, most of the vast area where they take tourists to view grizzly bears and other wildlife remains unaffected by the aftermath.

It was much the same at Plato Island Resort on Quesnel Lake, 20 kilometres upstream from the mine incident, according to Marita Boxrud.

They fielded an initial flurry of calls from inbound visitors, though no one cancelled bookings. And they experienced a lull in new bookings until results from environmental testing showed the lake water to be safe.

“Since that happened the phone is ringing again and we’re all good,” Boxrud added.

However, Zorn said that from the eight guests they were hosting, they learned that news of the mine disaster was featured prominently in places such as Switzerland, Belgium and Germany.

“We need the government to do some damage control and a bit of overseas marketing,” he added.

In 2010 — the most recent year that the Cariboo Chilcotin Coastal Tourism Association has statistics for — tourism was a $105-million business in the region, which hosted 484,000 overnight visitors.

The province and tourism officials are trying to get that message out, according to Coralee Oakes, MLA for Cariboo North, which includes Likely and the mine site.

She added that a lot of work needs to be done to clean up the mine disaster, and the province is focused on that. But it is also working to get up-to-date imagery that puts the scope of the incident in perspective and encourage visitors to come to the Cariboo.

“It’s critical to get that message out,” Oakes said. “We are an absolutely spectacular area to come and visit.”

Geoff Moore, the travel-media officer for the tourism association, said the organization has heard from businesses hit with cancellations as well as a “marked decrease” in bookings, but has not yet quantified the impact.

He added that CCTA is also working hard to liaise with tourism operators to make sure they have up-to-date information to pass on to customers.

The organization will carry the message that the Cariboo is open for business to a major tourism convention that starts Sunday in Winnipeg.

Len Doucette, general manager at the Hills Health Ranch at 108 Mile in the south of the Cariboo-Chilcotin region, added that the scope of the disaster was initially exaggerated, with terms like “B.C.’s Exxon Valdez” applied to it.

He added that Hills took calls from worried inbound guests asking whether they should come and if the water was safe, although the resort is 200 kilometres away from the mine.

“We just have to bite our tongues and say ‘That was just a little pencil dot in an area the size of France,’ ” Doucette said.

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